figure out soon enough getting up early and working late are fairly basic parts of being an adult. I slow down for the final bump, practically coming to a full stop.
Jack stands and bounces on his tiptoes on the curb’s edge, skateboard in one hand, impatiently waiting for the car coming toward me to pass so he can cross. His shorts hang low on his hips and land just below the knee the way all the boys seem to be wearing them these days. On his head is a red baseball cap, turned backward, with large earphones—the noise-canceling kind—circling his neck.
I look to the other side of the road and see a couple of other teen boys, skateboards also in hand, clearly waiting for Jack to catch up.
“We should let him cross, Mom,” Audrey says.
I press my foot firmly on the brake, completely stopping the car. “You know, they look so much alike,” I say. “I don’t know how you tell who’s who.”
Audrey waves at Jack, and he waves back and smiles, recognizing her. “It’s the hair,” she says.
“What is?” I ask.
“How I tell them apart,” Audrey replies. I hold my hand up and wave Jack across the otherwise empty road, toward his group of friends. He smiles in acknowledgment and sets his skateboard on the pavement. “Sam’s hair is a bit longer, sort of curling around his ears. See?” Audrey holds up her phone, a picture of her and Sam lighting up the screen. Where he’s tall, she’s a pipsqueak—long-legged like me, but still short for her age; where he’s fair, she’s dark, brown-haired like her dad. In the photo they’re laughing, their faces squished together inside the picture’s frame.
“Cute photo,” I say, picking up my travel mug half full of now cold coffee. I’m about to take a sip when Audrey screams, jolting me. The next sounds I hear are a sickening thump and the squealing of brakes. The mug drops from my hands, and, as the coffee seeps into my lap, I gasp, watching Jack Beckett’s lanky, fifteen-year-old body smash into the windshield of the other car—which came out of nowhere, too fast—and cartwheel into the air like it weighs nothing at all.
I’m pushing so hard on the brake pedal my toes start to cramp. Instinctually I withdraw my foot to stop the pain, and the car jerks ahead. It’s only a couple of inches, but Audrey screams again with the jarring movement, and the shrill sound rattles in my head, confusing me. What happened? Did I hit someone? No, no. It wasn’t me. My car was stopped. My foot, hard on the brake.
My eyes dart to my rearview mirror, and I see Jack Beckett lying still on the pavement not far behind us, mostly obscured by a woman on her knees beside him, wearing a Burberry-style trench coat. The coat triggers recognition, but still, I stay buckled in my seat. “This is my fault,” I say, the beating of my heart pounding in my ears, my voice shaking. “I shouldn’t have stopped in the middle of... I shouldn’t have... Where did that car come from?” Audrey cries softly beside me, and I focus on her, murmuring that it’s going to be okay. I quickly turn off the ignition and put the car in Park but don’t unbuckle my seat belt just yet. I think of the bird, broken on my balcony, forgotten in the crazy rush of the morning. I’m terrified to see Jack up close—unfortunately, I know what a body looks like after it has done battle with a car—but am irrationally hoping, as I did this morning with the bird, that he’s simply stunned. He’ll be up and walking it off in a few minutes.
My breath comes too fast, but the influx of oxygen is also bringing back awareness and clarity. Now I hear the shouts and panicked instructions being barked out by a male voice that rises above the others. Someone thankfully taking charge of the situation.
What finally brings me back to the present and spurs me into action is the sound of Audrey gagging. She’s twisted in her seat, straining against her still buckled belt, eyes wild as she stares through our SUV’s back window at Jack. I grab her chin and turn her face to mine, noticing how odd her color is. Gray, like the caulking putty Ryan used to seal the cracks in the garage last winter. “If you’re going to throw up, get out of the car now.” My voice is calm, directive, though it has no power to it.
Regardless, my words reach her. She says nothing but unbuckles her seat belt. Then she quickly opens her door, jumps out and promptly vomits on to the curb, about where Jack was standing only a minute ago. For a moment I’m unsure what to do: my mothering instincts command me to go to Audrey, to rub her back like I have many times before when she’s been sick, but a stronger instinct tells me to get out of the car and go—no, run—to Jack Beckett.
He’s only ten feet or so behind my SUV, on the other side of the road, splayed out like he’s mid-jumping jack. I’m the third person there, joining the trench-coated woman I now recognize as Emma, who must have just started walking home with Charlotte when the accident happened. A man is crouched beside her, talking, I think, to the 911 operator on his phone. I recognize his voice as the barking, take-charge one, but now that I’m closer I can hear how the slight, nervous shake of his body is making his words tremble, as well.
“Yes, he’s breathing. Not conscious...There’s a lot of blood...His head...Okay, okay.” He turns to Emma, who is amazingly in control of herself, despite what’s in front of us. She used to be an emergency room nurse before leaving to stay home with her two children, and I often sought her advice when Audrey had a fever or a cough that wouldn’t leave her little lungs. “We have to try and stop the bleeding.” The man then notices me standing there and hands me his phone. I put it to my ear, not yet seeing the streak of red on it that has now transferred to my hand, my ear, and he stands to take off his sweater. Now that he has moved slightly away from Jack, I can see how much blood there is, and that the knees of the man’s khakis are soaked dark crimson. I unwrap the pashmina from around my neck and hand it to the man. “To help with the bleeding,” I say, my voice quivering with the adrenaline coursing through me. I notice Jack’s ball cap is gone, but the headphones are still around his neck—backward now, so it sort of looks as though he’s wearing a plastic dog collar.
“Hello?” the operator says. “Are you still with me? Don’t hang up, okay?”
“Yes, sorry. I’m here,” I respond, trying to stop my arms from shaking while I hold the phone tight to my ear and listen to her instructions. “She says to apply pressure on the head wound, with whatever we have. But to be careful not to move his neck.” With a nod the man passes his sweater to Emma, who gently places it around Jack’s head, before folding my scarf into neat squares to firmly press against Jack’s skull. Emma takes over, her confident and nimble hands holding the scarf to Jack’s head as she talks softly to him about help being on the way and that he shouldn’t worry, they are going to take good care of him. Her coat is still tightly belted, though now there are splotches of blood mingling with the tan, black and red plaid squares. I have no idea where Charlotte is. Then I realize I have no idea where Audrey is, either.
There are now two lines of cars, one behind my SUV and another behind the white Volvo wagon that hit Jack, curious heads poking out of rolled-down windows, wondering what the holdup is about, the odd honk to get things moving. A crowd has gathered around us, including Jack’s buddies who were waiting for him to cross the road and whose faces betray the horror—a horror I know all too well, the kind you can never erase—of what they just witnessed. They all hold phones to their ears, their panicked voices mingling, so I can’t hear distinct words.
But the onlookers, including Jack’s friends, stay along the periphery of the accident scene. Outside the worst of it, some sharing prayers for this poor young man. I wish to be with them instead of standing in this inner circle, where we are removing clothing as quickly as Jack’s blood is flowing, trying to do
